Politics
Monday July 24, 2006
Durex Markets Condoms Designed for 13-16 Year Olds
TODAY'S HEADLINES
E-MAIL
PRINT
By Peter J. Smith
LONDON, July 24, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A condom manufacturer has set its sights on British youth, intending to market condoms designed for young teenagers in the United Kingdom as soon as 2007, provoking outrage from parents and pro-family organizations, according to the Sun, a British newspaper.
Durex, the condom manufacturer, intends to market a smaller, 49 mm condom to Britain’s youth, which it introduced in Germany just last week. The company claims the condom is also easier to put on for those who are inexperienced.
“It is aimed at youths between 13 and 16, where a not insignificant number engage in unprotected sex,” said a Durex spokesman.
The specially designed condom has garnered the approval of Britain’s Family Planning Association which has said, “All initiatives that promote young people to have safe sex should be encouraged,” according to the Sun.
The company sees the United Kingdom as a market for the condom, since the UK has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe, and British teens on average engage in sexual intercourse for the first time when they are 15.
However, Matthew O’Gorman, spokesman for the pro-life charity LIFE, blasted the deliberate marketing of the condoms to young teenagers as “sick and irresponsible.”
“We know that teenagers engage in risky behaviour. If it’s messing around on roads or taking drugs, we teach them not to – because it’s bad for them,” added O’Gorman.
“But when it comes to sex, we do the opposite – by throwing condoms at the problem.”
A recent exposé of condoms by Human Life International indicates that the failure rate of condoms due to bursting, tearing, and slipping off is 8.08%, or 1 in 12. The rate of pregnancy in women with partners who always use condoms is 15% within the first year, a rate that increases to 80% after ten years.
Recent research has also consistently dispelled the myth that condoms are effective at preventing the spread of STDs.
Read the HLI exposé at: http://www.hli.org/condom_expose.html
See the Sun’s report:
Outrage at Durex for kids
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006330430,00.html
Back to TopLatest Headlines
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase out Lab Rats
- Ohio Supreme Court Allows Planned Parenthood to Conceal Abortion Records in Sexual Abuse Case
- LifeSiteNews Canada Day and Independence Day Message. Taking a few days off. LSN returns Monday July 6
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Pro-Life Groups Announce New Colorado Personhood Initiative
- Judge Puts Kibosh on DC Gay "Marriage" Referendum
- Al Franken Win Hands Supermajority to Senate Democrats
- Group Funded by Canadian Bishops' D&P Joins with Others to Denounce the "Natural Family" and "Family Rights"
- Financially Troubled Planned Parenthood of El Paso Closes Doors
- Abortion Linked to Subsequent Pre-Term Births, New Research Again Confirms
- New Orleans Homosexual Couple Ask Fed. Court to Overturn Marriage Amendment
- Slim Hope Of New Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader Promoting Pro-Life, Pro-Family Issues
- Pope Accepts Resignation of Bishop Caught Involved in Homosexual Encounters
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Northern Ireland Politician Cleared of Wrongdoing after Reiterating Christian Teaching on Homosexual Acts
- UK Conservative Leader Speaks at Gay Pride Fundraiser
- More Letters to the Editor on Canadian Catholic Development and Peace Scandal (July 1)
- Letters to the Editor - Readers Respond to Development and Peace Scandal
- Watch This Dramatic New Video on Catholic Bishops Conference Funding of Pro-Abortion Groups
Most Read this Week
- Homosexual Duke U. Director Charged with Offering Adopted 5-Year-Old for Sex
- Famed Fr. Corapi Calls Canadian Bishops' Dissent from Humanae Vitae "Catastrophic"
- Pope: It is a Childish Faith to Oppose the Church Teaching on Life and Family
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- LifeSiteNews Detailed Response to Canadian Bishops' Whitewash Report on Development and Peace
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase Out Lab Rats
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Is Pro-Choice the New Pro-Life?
- Swedish Parents Won't Tell if Child is Boy or Girl as Gender Experiment
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.